‘DialIn’ Your Profile On LinkedIn

These days, it seems like LinkedIn is where all the cool business people hang out. From CEOs to head hunters to real estate investors, business people are really diggin’ using LinkedIn to expand their business and network…

So, perhaps it can be used in the real estate game:

Could there be some potential buyers for your wholesale deals or flips?
How about hard money lenders?
Any chance CEOs and wealthy entrepreneurs are looking for somewhere to make their money work for them?
If you are a buyer, maybe someone has a property they want to wholesale in your area?
What about realtors that deal specifically in foreclosures who are looking for investors?

We’re sure there are plenty of other uses – we are just scratching the surface here. But remember: The stronger your network, the more deals come your way.

Strengthening that network takes time – but LinkedIn can accelerate it. And, we’re gonna give you a few tips and techniques to maximize the value of optimizing a great LinkedIn profile.

Create a Great First Impression

The internet has made everyone’s attention span last only about 0.0000005 seconds. When people click on your page, they want to see that you mean business. Make sure people like what they see. Here are some things you can do to create that professional image:

SEO your profile
What kind of keywords would potential buyers, wholesalers, private money lenders or realtors, look for? Use those words in your profile. One technique you can use is to personalize your profile URL. Most people have a bunch of random numbers and letters on their URL, but it is easy to have something like http://www.linkedin.com/in/richerthanTrump (not a real link). Using interesting keywords in the link will help drive traffic. You can see how to personalize it here.

Do you have a website?
Maybe visitors to your website would also like access to your LinkedIn profile and vice versa. Most people know about the personal website links you can add to your profile, but just like everyone else, the link text says ‘Personal Website. You can change the text to something more descriptive about your website like ‘List of Wholesale Deals.’ Each profile can display up to 3 website links. To customize the links:

Click on the area to ‘Edit Your Profile’ from the ‘Profile’ drop down menu in the upper left corner
Click on ‘Edit Contact Info’ under your picture, name and position

Click on the pencil next to ‘websites’
Select ‘Other’ from the dropdown menu for each of the three website links

Sample 1

You can also put a ‘profile badge’ on your website that links directly to your LinkedIn profile. This looks a little more professional than just the standard LinkedIn badge. LinkedIn has a few different badges you can try or you can create your own. To create your own badge, go here.

Wannabe or Proven Success

Making your profile pretty and professional is important, but many real estate people will have one big question:

“Where’s the Beef?”

There are a ton of people who like to exaggerate their credentials on the internet (yeah, yeah – I know you’re shocked). Why not differentiate yourself from those people? Show them proof of what you are doing. LinkedIn has all sorts of capability to add a variety of media such as images, videos, documents, and links to the Summary, Education, and Experience sections of your LinkedIn profile.

Maybe you can show examples of the numbers from deals you’ve done. Or a video of a recent renovation project you have been working on. How about a list of testimonials from tenants, buyers, other investors saying how great it is working with you? You can learn about setting up and editing examples of your success here.

As you add more and more solid examples of your work, you may find that the standard LinkedIn layout just doesn’t work for you as well. If that’s true, you can move sections of your profile around to a layout that suits you better. Just go to the edit mode and hover your mouse on the pencil-edit part of each section. The mouse will turn into a 4-barred arrow and you can drag the section into another area.

Sample 2

You can also add or delete sections. There is a full list of sections you can add or delete in the LinkedIn help section.

Grand Tip Finale

There is also a really cool ‘saved search’ function. Say you are a wholesaler looking for buyers….

You want to run a search for real estate flippers in the Washington, D.C. area, but you don’t want to set up the search every time you look for them. LinkedIn allows users to save up to three people searches.

After running a search, click the ‘Save This Search’ option on the right to save a search and easily run it again later. You can also choose weekly or monthly reminders via email once new members in the network match your saved search criteria. Here is how to do a saved search.

Sample 3

Linking it all Together

Look, LinkedIn can really power your real estate investing.

In the next ‘Tech Tip’ Friday, we’ll go over how to use the other functions of LinkedIn to find deals, funding and people to have on your team and build your network.

But you have to start with your own profile. It’s useless to reach out to all these people if your profiles looks unprofessional.

Create a Professional Profile – If you haven’t created a profile yet on LinkedIn – do it now. No really, go now.

Update Your Profile - If you have a profile, think about ways you enhance it so people will want to do business with you, can find you more easily, and see what you have to offer.

Create a Media Package – If you have a track record of successful deals, put them on LinkedIn. Then, bundle them into a professional presentation to show that you get the job done and that you benefit all parties.

Use Other Social Media – LinkedIn is powerful, but so are Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and other social media websites. The bigger your presence on the web, the more contacts you can make, and the more successful you can become.